


A Chance Meeting

by aimlys



Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, Angst, Marineford, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 20:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15737139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimlys/pseuds/aimlys
Summary: Just a quick ficlet scribbled out at 5am about Ace getting to see Sabo in his final moments because his death hasn't caused us enough pain already :'D





	A Chance Meeting

He had been bent over his desk looking through the most recent reports when he felt the air stir behind him. 

“Funny, thought you’d be shorter,” spoke an unknown, yet strangely familiar, voice. 

Whirling around bracing to attack the intruder, he froze as his eyes focused on the unexpected face. 

Seeing the man in person was so very different from seeing a name or image in reports and on wanted posters. It was jarring. Unexpected intrusions aside, the sight of Portgas D. Ace standing in his office, with that relaxed stance, and easy smile as if he’d never belonged anywhere else. Staring back at him with an expression that could only be read as ‘I’m home,’ was rapidly flooding him with too many emotions to keep track of. Shock and anger to be sure, but it was the feelings of joy, sadness, comfort, and loss that now held him frozen in place, and the rising notion that something deep, far back in the recesses of his mind, that had been slowly cracking over the years was, at last, beginning to crumble. 

“Sabo.” 

In that one moment everything broke. The wall that his subconscious had built in his mind all those years ago exploded as all of his repressed memories came pouring through. 

-

The last syllable had barely left his lips before Sabo had him in a crushing grip, arms wound tightly around his shoulders, clinging to him the way a drowning man would a life preserver in the midst of a raging sea. Words rushing out as rapid as those same stormy waters too quick to make any sense of. 

Closing his own arms around him, returning the embrace Ace shut his eyes taking a moment to breathe him in as the bitter irony of the moment washed over him. 

He had suspected something was off when he suddenly found himself in this strange room, with a man who even from behind and twelve years older he would know anywhere, but it wasn’t until he had grabbed him that he became certain. 

Sabo was alive. Had been alive the entire time. 

He could feel the life force burning within him as easily as he could feel his own dimming back in his own body in Marineford where Luffy held him still. 

Chuckling bitterly he supposed there were worse ways for a man to die than in the arms of his brothers.  
Tightening his arms around Sabo once more he leaned back and smiled, “Look after Luffy for me.” 

-

Sabo stared in confusion as the words registered. 

“Wha-” he began as Ace faded from sight. 

_“...sorry I died.”_

The last words a whisper drowned out by Koala’s sudden entrance into the room. 

“Hey, Hack needs us to- Sabo?” She drew up short as she noticed him standing alone in the middle of the otherwise empty room. 

“Everything alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she joked nervously. 

He blinked slowly as his eyes focused on her as if coming out of a trance. 

“I- ...yeah. I think I did,” He mumbled quickly brushing past her to make his way out of the room. 

“S-Hey! Wait! We’ve got… an assignment,” she finished lamely shaking her head at his antics watching him disappear around a corner, “that man.” 

-

A few days had passed since he’d seen Ace, and he’d managed to convince himself it had only been a vision brought on by the sudden return of his memories which he hadn’t yet told anyone about. 

He’d spent the last several nights reading up on any intel the Revolutionaries had gathered on Ace and Luffy’s exploits these last few years. He was on his way to return one such file as he passed by the common room, and heard the commotion. 

The anxious feeling he’d had ever since having the vision, that he’d put off as another side effect of his returned memories, was now going off in his head like an alarm. Growing louder with every step towards the men who were gathered around a table looking at something. 

“That’s one less troublemaker to have to worry about,” one man quipped to another nearby. 

As it finally came in to focus he froze. The words “Portgas D. Ace executed” staring back at him from the page of the day's paper. 

The file dropped from his hand as he stumbled forward. The background chatter fading as the alarm in his mind grew to cacophonous levels the noise drowning out everything else. Reaching for the page as the realization washed over him. 

It was real. Ace was here. It wasn’t a vision. By some twisted miracle he’d managed to appear before him in his final moments. 

_‘Look after Luffy for me,’_ echoed in his mind as he dropped to his knees letting out an anguished cry. 

_‘Sorry, I died…’_

**Author's Note:**

> An idea that came about talking with people on the Lawlu Discord about Sabo's memories returning as Ace disappeared in his arms :'D


End file.
